


Kenopsia

by UnscriptedCryptid



Series: Broken Bones and Team Bonding [2]
Category: DC Cinematic Universe, Justice League (2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Barry Whump (referenced), Bat Man Miscast in Role of Father, Gen, Team (slowly) becoming family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 00:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12995388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnscriptedCryptid/pseuds/UnscriptedCryptid
Summary: Barry Allen goes missing. The team tries to find him.orThe companion fic to Antitheses that exactly one (1) person asked for.





	Kenopsia

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion fic to Antitheses, so if you haven't read that, it may not make quite as much sense. There are also some references to Sweet and Low, but I think you might be able to get away without reading that behemoth.  
> I would also like to take this moment to apologize for having no self control (lmao)

It starts like this:

Barry is sleeping on a guest bed after pushing himself so hard that he had a hypoglycemic seizure when Bruce comes to the realization that the ragtag team he assembled to combat the apocalypse is somehow becoming something more.

“This was supposed to be temporary, Alfred,” Bruce grumbles, staring straight through the cup of cider in his hand. He has a seven hundred dollar receipt from the nearest Chinese place and a $35,000 check issued to Central City University that tell him how well that assumption played out.  

“I assumed the Bat theatrics would be temporary, too, Master Wayne,” Alfred retorts. “But here we are.”

“You do realize I could _fire_ you, Alfred.”

“I would be so lucky.”

Bruce glares, but there isn’t any heat behind it. This isn’t Alfred’s fault. Alfred knows it, and so does Bruce. But Bruce remembers two kids—dark hair, dark eyes, a grave and a city that he can never bring himself to visit—and then Bruce thinks of the other kid—dark hair, dark eyes, currently sprawled all the way across a king-sized mattress with his shoes on. And damn it. This isn’t going to be temporary at all.

“This is going to be a mistake,” Bruce says, because it always is. It always has been. But Alfred just smiles, thoroughly pleased.

“We’ll leave that up to the League to decide, won’t we?”

\---

“This is going to be a mistake,” Barry says, not for the first time, as he stares through the passenger window of Bruce’s Lamborghini. He fiddles with his tie, brushes his fingers through his hair for the tenth time in as many minutes. “I’m going to say something and get myself fired or punched or—or arrested. This is a disaster waiting to happen.”

“Relax,” Bruce says, and it’s fascinating to see how the kid’s posture eases exponentially at one word alone. “Just remember what I told you, and you’ll be fine. Don’t overthink this.” 

Barry sighs. “Right. Don’t overthink it. And don’t raid the buffet table even though it’s going to be totally accessible. And, uhh, don’t try to take a selfie with the police chief. And don’t fidget during presentations.” He crinkles his nose. “You know, you sure gave me a lot of ‘don’ts.’ That doesn’t inspire much confidence.”

Bruce’s smile is wry, but genuine. One thing he still doesn’t understand after all this time is how Barry is so easily able to drag it out of him.

“It’s a police gala, Barry. Discuss some recently closed cases with the higher-ups for a few hours, only speak when you’re prompted, and for the love of God, don’t bring up everything bagels.”

“Okay, that was _one time_ , and I’m pretty sure I had a concussion, and I’m just saying that it’s a bold claim to make. What does ‘everything’ even—” Barry freezes mid-rant, letting the hand that he was gesturing with fall to his side. “…Point taken. I won’t bring up any breakfast food.”

“Good call.”

They drive in silence for a minute, and the fact that the silence is able to last that long is enough of an incentive for Bruce to speak up again. (Because Barry never stops talking unless he’s exhausted, upset, or nervous. Anyone in the League could tell you that.) 

 “Take it one hour at a time,” Bruce proposes. Barry doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he doesn’t argue. Instead, he busies himself by lazily tracing the stitches on his suit jacket.

“What if,” Barry suggests, “and I’m just putting this out there, but what _if—_ I, uh, just hid in a supply closet until it’s all over?”

“If you want to get promoted, you have to make an impression on your superiors, kid,” Bruce explains, because Barry has always responded well to logic. “This gala is the place to do that. Like I said: you’ll be fine.”

And he debates whether or not to keep going, but the choice isn’t a hard one to make. Not when Barry looks so scared.

“You’re going to do great,” Bruce promises. “Go out there and charm the hell out of them.”

“Okay,” Barry finally says, nodding. His lips quirk up into a megawatt grin, and Bruce can’t help but respond with a small smile of his own. “Yeah. Okay. You got it, B. Charm the hell out of them. Can do.”

And that’s the end of it. Barry spends the rest of the ride talking about how he’s slowly befriending everyone in the crime lab, how Detective Walter actually _laughed_ when Barry made a bad pun the other day, how everything bagels are a lie and an affront to everything that Barry believes in, and before Barry knows it, they’re pulling up to the venue.

Barry takes one step outside of the car and stops, because he couldn’t let this be that simple.

“Hey Bruce?” he begins, tone soft, and Bruce braces himself, because Barry’s either about to say something incredibly thoughtful or profoundly stupid. “Thank you for the—uh, the dress shirt. The ride. Everything. You didn’t have to do any of it, and the fact that you _did.._. You have no idea how much it means to me.”

Bruce doesn’t know what to say.

(In retrospect, it could have been anything. He could have said ‘you’re welcome.’ He could have said it wasn’t a problem. He could have said he didn’t want Barry running through the city in a borrowed dress shirt.

He could have said he was proud.)

Bruce doesn’t say anything at all.

Barry gives him a look—something understanding and pained all at once—then heads into the gala, because Bruce told him that everything would be alright.

This will be Bruce’s first mistake.

\---

At 12:26 AM, almost half an hour past when Barry agreed to meet Bruce outside of the building, Bruce will send a text (partly-joking, mostly-not) asking how the fastest man on earth can be so late to every obligation that he ever makes. He will not receive a reply.

\---

Bruce calls a League meeting not because he is worried—the Batman does not get worried—but because his instincts tell him that there is something wrong, and there is no better way to mitigate the problem than by throwing a team of superheroes at it.

“Keep telling yourself that, Master Wayne,” Alfred says when Bruce tries to explain why he needs enough brunch to feed a small army at Gotham’s Hall of Justice within the next thirty minutes. The fact that he’s calling the team in at brunch-time is not deliberate, but it still gives Bruce a grim sense of amusement to know that Barry is going to complain about it.

“Just make sure there are pumpkin pancakes,” Bruce responds, crossing his arms. (Diana will never admit it, but everyone knows that they’re her favorite.)

It’s been two days since the gala, and the kid still isn’t answering his phone. This in itself would not be particularly alarming—Barry has a habit of shutting himself off when he thinks that someone’s upset with him, a self-preservation tactic that Bruce understands and is vaguely concerned about—but Barry _never_ disobeys a direct order telling him to respond, so the fact that he hasn’t offered even a half-hearted explanation despite Bruce’s command for one is setting Bruce on edge.

“You’re allowed to be worried, Master Wayne.” Alfred says. “There is nothing wrong with that.”

“I’m not worried,” Bruce replies, because he’s _not_. He’s angry and tired and uneasy with the lack of information that he has on the situation, but he’s not worried.

“If it’s any consolation,” Alfred offers anyway, “I’m worried, too.”

It isn’t any consolation. Even less of a consolation, however, is when the League trickles in—Clark and Diana, Victor, then Arthur—until two hours have passed and Barry still isn’t there.

“Two hours. New record,” Arthur grumbles, cramming the rest of a bagel in his mouth. It does not escape Bruce’s attention that Arthur has only eaten the everything bagels and left the rest of them untouched. “The kid’s ridiculous. I say we start the meeting without him. He’ll catch up.”

“This isn’t like him,” Diana offers, ever the mediator. She isn’t wrong. Barry’s never been this late before, especially not when there’s food involved.

“Maybe he’s asleep?” Clark asks, but Bruce can tell that nobody believes it. Barry’s sleep schedule is a mystery—Bruce has found him passed out on one of the manor’s couches as early as 2 PM or as late as four in the morning—but he always wakes up to the custom text tone he has set for League activities. It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. “Have any of you seen him around recently? Ma wanted him to come taste test her newest pie recipe, but he hasn’t gotten back to me. I figured he was with one of you.”

“I haven’t heard from him since last Friday,” Victor cuts in then. His gaze is piercing when he levels it Bruce’s way, “and I’m guessing I just figured out our topic of conversation.”

The League falls silent. Bruce can tangibly feel when they all turn to him at once.

“Well?” Arthur asks, tone clipped. The sudden tension in the air is smothering, but not surprising, given the circumstances.

“I think something’s wrong,” Bruce says. “And I think I know how to find out what it is.”  

\---

The Batman does not get worried.

Victor pulls up the feed, because there is not a single piece of technology on this earth that he cannot make bend to his will. It’s a charming enough scene—fancy dresses and careful conversation, something that Bruce knows intimately—and there, on the outskirts, is Barry Allen, scratching at an arm as he watches the dancing couples before him.

“I’m surprised you got him to ditch the hoodie,” Arthur tells Bruce, and Bruce can only see that there is a fondness there because he recognizes it in himself. (Barry had been so worried about dressing up that he’d asked Bruce for help. Bruce would like to say that he doesn’t know why he agreed, but then he’d be lying.)

Victor skips ahead. Barry chats with some coworkers, frequents the buffet table with just enough casualty to make it seem like he’s taking a lot less than he actually is. Then, there’s a woman, and everything falls apart.

She leads Barry to a hallway. She hands him a drink. Arthur lets out a low whistle, and Diana elbows him so hard that he chokes.

The Batman does not get worried.

Barry rejects the drink, then accepts it, because he’s always been eager to please. He takes a small sip, then a lot more as the woman says something to him and lightly touches him on the arm.

This could be normal, but somehow, Bruce knows that it isn’t.

Barry freezes, and his expression is young and confused and vulnerable. Bruce can feel Arthur stiffen up at his side, can hear as Clark breathes in sharp and see as Diana shifts closer to the screen. His own heart resounds in his ears, because something is wrong. (But he isn’t worried. He can’t be.)

The hallway is wide and dim and empty save for its two lone occupants. Barry’s mouth is moving, but he looks so scared. He pushes away from the woman at his side, takes a few uneven steps back towards the party.

Then, he collapses.

(Bruce remembers another dark-haired kid, remembers how the Joker stole him away. Bruce couldn’t find him in time. He can never find them in time.)

The Batman does not get worried.

But Bruce Wayne is terrified.

\---

Her name is Michelle Moredano, and she was found dead on Saturday morning. Despite the amount of money that Bruce offers to throw the policemen’s way, they will not give him any follow-up details. (Ironic, Bruce thinks, because this entire precinct was corrupt before Wayne Enterprise stepped in to correct it.)

“Mister Wayne,” one of the workers at the crime lab calls. For a moment, the worker sounds starstruck, and Bruce thinks that he’s about to be stuck listening to someone’s idea for a new business venture. But the man sizes him up then, surreptitiously glances around to make sure no one’s watching before adding, “Jacob Keener. I’m a friend of Barry’s.”

And just like that, Bruce has a lead.

Jacob tells him that there were no signs of forced entry at the apartment, and there were no signs of a captive hidden away anywhere either.

“But that’s not the interesting part,” Jacob adds, leaning across the table in the abandoned backroom. “Miss Moredano was called in at two in the morning, and her body was already at ambient temperature.”

Bruce’s eyes widen. “Meaning she—”

“Was dead at the time of the party,” Jacob confirms, nodding. “She had to be.”

Jacob lets out a shuddered sigh as Bruce files away this piece of information for later.

“But she was _there_ , Mister Wayne. Barry was talking to her. She—she led him into the hallway and. Well. I’m guessing you know. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Bruce doesn’t answer. Jacob doesn’t need him to.

“I’m sorry,” Jacob says then. “I—I should have been looking out for him.”

“That isn’t your responsibility,” Bruce replies, because it's his. It's the League’s. Jacob frowns.

“Of course it is, though,” he argues. “He’s my friend. And he’s weird and he’s loud and he’s way too trusting.” Jacob closes his eyes tight, runs a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know what Barry means to you,” Jacob admits, “but he’s basically the best person that’s ever stepped foot in this garbage-hole lab. So I’m going to need you to do me a favor.”

Bruce leans back in his chair, crosses his arms. Jacob takes that as the assent it is, plucks the pen out of his pocket and scribbles something on his notepad.

“Our main suspect is dead. We don’t even know where to start,” Jacob confesses. “But I’m sure you have your sources.”

He swallows hard, hands Bruce the sheet of paper.

“Find him, Mister Wayne.”

\---

The address is to an old apartment located on the South side of Central City. When Victor pulls up the surveillance video to the given room number, Bruce is able to watch as a familiar woman walks into the room at 7:30 in the afternoon and as Michelle Moredano walks out at 7:45.

“Shapeshifter,” he says, because he knows her. (He knows her, and this is personal, and Barry Allen is going to pay for Bruce Wayne’s mistakes, because that’s the way it always goes.)

It isn’t a lot. But at least Bruce knows where to start.

\---

The League hunts for three nights—in Central City, because Bruce knows that’s where she’ll be.

(She would never operate in Gotham. Not with the enemies that she’s made there.)

On the fifth night, Bruce carves his symbol onto the side of each decrepit building that they scout, hoping to send out a message.

And on the sixth, a response appears at Gotham’s Hall of Justice, taking form as a small box on the doorstep.

 _You rang?_ the note on it reads.

Victor scans the box, gives the all clear. Arthur rips it open with his bare hands, and when the pictures of Barry spill across the table, he lets out a curse and kicks the wall so hard that it bursts into an array of plaster and brick.

Some of the photos are older—photos of Barry walking out of the crime lab, browsing hoodies at the mall, eating at run down restaurants with his coworkers on break—but even though those make Bruce’s blood ice over, it is nothing compared to the way that his body completely shuts down at the photos from the last few days.

Diana picks one of them up, and the devastation is right there, in her tight posture and slack jaw and shaking fingers.

“Why would anyone do this?” she asks. “Why would anyone—”

Barry’s slumped against the wall, dress shirt ripped open to reveal a chest mottled with bruises and lacerations. Bruce sees the knife sticking out of Barry’s collarbone, comes to the realization that the skin has healed around it, and Clark must be able to see Bruce’s blood pressure sky rocket, because he’s at Bruce’s side in an instant, steady grip on Bruce’s shoulder the only thing keeping him grounded.

“We’ll find him,” Clark promises. “Bruce,  _we’ll find him_.”

Arthur continues his systematic destruction of the room as he breaks a chair across the floor, and Victor desperately scans the recent photos, searching for any details that can tell him what building the League needs to infiltrate and then burn to the ground.

“We’ll find him,” Clark says.

But Bruce knows that already.

It’s just a matter of finding him _in time._

\---

On the ninth night, the Batman breaks composure.

The League is fanned out again, searching for any sign of where their youngest member could be, and Bruce has the pleasure of running across two criminals attempting to break into the Central City bank.

It isn’t a hard take-down. The criminals, for all that they spit and snarl and loom, are sorely unversed in hand-to-hand, and once the Batman is able to wrestle the guns away from them, it is terribly easy to pin them down, slap some shackles on them and make the call to the police.

And that should have been it. But then, they start to talk.

“If you let us go,” one of them claims, sneering, “we can tell you where they’re keeping the Flash.”

(It’s the beginning of the end.)

Bruce knows that they’re lying. He _knows_. But yesterday, the League received a photo of Barry, half-conscious on the floor with blood dripping from his nose and teeth, and just that visual alone is enough to make logic rip itself right out of Bruce’s grasp.

He crouches down next to Thug #1, stares straight through him with all the concentrated fury that he can.

“Tell me,” Bruce commands.

“This kind of information doesn’t come for free,” Thug #1 responds, shrugging. Bruce slips a batarang from his belt, raises it up in the beginning of a threat.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Thug #2 cuts in. “You don’t wanna know what kind of things the boss’ll do to the kid if one of us doesn’t make it back.”

And it’s transparent. But it’s been over a week, and the League isn’t even a step closer to finding Barry, so Bruce doesn’t particularly care.

“You’re bluffing,” he growls. He’s losing it. He needs to get out. But he can’t. Barry’s running out of time. If there’s any chance—any chance that they are telling the truth at all—then this is worth it.

“You’d be surprised,” Thug #1 says, mouth twisting up into a snarled smile. “People would pay a handsome fee to take a bite of a pretty little thing like that.”

Bruce’s blood boils, but he carefully molds his expression into something impassive.

“Quit wasting my time,” he says. Stands. Starts to turns away.

“You know,” Thug #2 says, “he’s beautiful when he cries.”

And something in Bruce’s chest snaps then, and something in the thug’s face snaps, too, as Bruce rams his fist into it again and again and again. Blood sprays across the front of his suit, and all he can think about is dark hair, dark eyes, kids that he keeps losing, the _anger-fury-heartbreak_ in his veins _._ And the second thug screams out in outrage and alarm, but all that does is drag Bruce’s attention to him instead, and by the time the police arrive to drag Bruce off, there are two criminals half dead in Central City and a kid trapped away somewhere in a warehouse no closer to being found.

“Batman,” Diana pleads, tone urgent, and she pulls him back away from the scene as Clark steps in to cut him off from the criminals’ view. “They’re down. It’s over. Let’s go back to the Hall, okay? Let’s go back.”

And Bruce agrees, but only because the adrenaline in his body is making him go numb.

(They’ll arrive back at the Hall to find a picture of Barry tacked up to the door with a knife. He’s semiconscious in the photo, face covered in blood and tears, but it’s the caption that makes Bruce break—that makes him yell out in rage and trash the main entrance.

 _They’re right._ It reads. _He is beautiful when he cries._ )

\---

On the tenth day, before they head out to search again, Victor slams a newspaper on the table back at the Hall of Justice.

“We’re getting sloppy,” he says. _Spotted in Central City,_ the newspaper reads, and _Heroes on the Hunt._ He flips the page, and Bruce scowls as he sees that it’s a picture of himself.

_Batman Hospitalizes Two After Brutal Beat-down: Has the Bat Gone Crazy?_

“Who cares?” Arthur snaps in response. “We just have to find the kid. It doesn’t fucking matter who sees us while we do it.”

And it’s very rare, Bruce thinks, to find himself agreeing with Aquaman. But here they are.

“We’re still a symbol of hope,” Diana reasons, voice tired. The team is always tired, now. “We can’t forget that.”

“Yeah, sure,” Arthur bites back. “How about this? You act as dignified as you want and go make friends with the press. Meanwhile, I’ll be finding our teammate because, unlike you, I actually care about whether or not he’s found in one piece.”

“That isn’t fair,” Clark interjects. “We all care about him, Arthur. Don’t act like you’re the only one being affected by this.”

“All care—” Arthur starts, cuts himself off with a rusty laugh. “The first time you met the kid, you tried to punch his head off. Then, you spent the rest of the fight trying to tell him that you can do his own job better than he can. Don’t sit here acting like any of us mean anything to you.”

“That was—” Clark begins, affronted. Victor cuts him off.

“Barry doesn’t even think you _like_ him,” he snaps, stepping in front of Arthur to square up. “All you ever do is yell at him, or insult him. Superman was brought back from the dead and he reacted accordingly. What’s _your_ excuse?”

Arthur’s face slams straight to outrage. “Barry knows that I care about him,” he argues. “And I’m not going to stand here and let a machine try to teach me a lesson about emotions.”

“Stop this,” Diana says, stepping in-between them. “This isn’t helping anyone.”

Arthur glares at her, raises his chin. “Like you care. Being a 'symbol for hope' is charming and all, but isn’t exactly stopping anyone from cutting Barry up either.”

Diana hesitates, stricken, and Bruce decides that it’s time to put an end to it all.

“Enough,” he snarls, and when Arthur opens his mouth (likely to complain), Bruce pins him in place with the most frigid look he can muster.

“Barry has been missing for ten days,” Bruce challenges. “We can either sit here bickering and make it eleven, or we can go out and find him. I don’t know about you, but I’m leaning towards the latter.”

“That’s what I was saying,” Arthur grumbles, mouth pulling into a glower.

“Diana’s right. We have to be more careful,” Bruce shoots back, unwavering even when Arthur puffs up in defiance. “But Arthur's right, too. We can’t sit here worrying about the press when one of our own is in danger.”

Bruce pauses. Sighs, weariness settling in his bones.

“We all saw the photos. This isn’t something that we have time to debate about.”

And that’s that. Arthur’s posture eases in acceptance. Diana and Victor step back, thoroughly chastised. Clark looks to Bruce, face professional and unshakable. Resolute.

“Where should we start tonight?” he asks.

\---

On the thirteenth day, they receive a tie—a maroon piece of fabric covered in dried, flaking blood.

(Bruce helped Barry pick out this tie. He tied it for him right before the party, looped it around his neck and felt something like pride bloom in his chest. Now there’s just a hollow sort of acceptance, like Bruce knows that he’s too late but can’t do anything about it.

Still, the League searches.)

\---

“He’s dead,” Bruce tells Alfred, the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the table enough for him to know that he’s well past the point of pretending not to care.

(He remembers how Barry had asked him to cut back on the drinking—how the kid didn’t even know that it was cider the whole time—and he almost feels ashamed that this is the point he’s at. But Barry isn’t here, will never be here again, so. What is there to lose?)

“You don’t know that, Master Wayne,” Alfred says. He slips a glass of water in front of Bruce, pulls back the bottle of whiskey despite Bruce’s protests.

“It’s been three days, Alfred,” Bruce says. “Since the tie, there haven’t been any pictures, any—anything. He’s dead. He’s dead and it’s because of me.”

(They always die because of him.)

“Mister Allen is stronger than you think,” Alfred reassures him. Bruce reaches for the bottle of whiskey, groans as Alfred pulls it out of his range. “Don’t give up on him yet.”

\---

Day seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.

The team keeps looking, but there’s something fractured between them—something empty and cold and resigned.

“We aren’t going to find him,” Arthur mutters, leaning back on a chair (one of the few that he has not broken) back at the Hall. “At least, not alive.”

The devastation and surprise flashes across his own features before it flashes across everyone else’s. But Arthur’s expression quickly turns into raw disgust as he pulls the misplaced lasso out from under him.

“Stop leaving your shit everywhere,” he barks at Diana, throwing it at her with more force than necessary.

Diana catches the lasso without a word.

Nobody is willing to discuss what’s been said. The implications are damning.

\---

But on the twenty-first day, they receive a letter.

 _I’m getting bored,_ it says. _He’s much more stubborn than he looks._

And that night, the League rips through the city with a new sense of purpose.

(She never should have let them know that Barry was alive.

This is the Shapeshifter’s first mistake.)

\---

When they find him, buried away in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Central City, Barry Allen has been missing for twenty-five days.

Victor is the one that spots the building, sends out the alarm saying that the plaster composition and texture inside matches the plaster composition and texture from the photos of Barry, and although he cannot confirm with 100% certainty that it is the right place, the hope in his message is tangible. The League unites and they are, at once, deadly and unstoppable—a force of nature ready to tear through the earth and leave it in flames.

And Justice is not the right word for this, Bruce thinks. But the details are irrelevant.

They scatter, storming the warehouse, busting through walls and doors until Bruce find her sitting in an empty room in the form that he recognizes from all those years ago.

“You’re too late,” the Shapeshifter says, and her smile is small and bitter. “You couldn't save him in time." 

“You’re lying,” Bruce responds, but the fear still sits in his ribcage, burns through his chest as he remembers the Joker, another warehouse, the bomb that ultimately took Jason’s life.

“You’ll see,” she hums.

And the Batman lunges.

\---

The fight is brutal but short. The Shapeshifter is crafty, but there are limits to her strength, and Bruce knows how to handle her. She lands some cheap hits—an elbow to Bruce’s face, a fist to his kidneys, a knife to his shoulder—but he wrestles her back to the wall and pins her in place with a hand to her neck.

“Tell me why,” she hisses, blood dripping from her nose and mouth. “Tell me why you branded him. Tell me why you sentenced him to die.”

“Your brother was a terrible man,” Bruce replies, and he isn’t lying. “But I never intended for it to be a death sentence.”

The Shapeshifter’s face contorts in outrage and grief before settling on the same blank emptiness that Bruce has seen reflected back at him in his own mirror these last few weeks.

“You killed him,” she says. “And now your _League_ is going to pay for what you’ve done.”

She shifts then, and Bruce recoils before he can help it, because _there’s blood dripping from his nose and mouth, a sudden wide-eyed vulnerability that makes Bruce’s heart drop_.

“Why did you leave me here?” Barry Allen asks, wheezing as he scrabbles at the hand on his neck. “Why didn’t you save me?”

Bruce releases the shapeshifter and watches as Barry Allen collapses to the floor.

He knows it’s fake. He _watched_ the transformation happen. But Bruce’s hands shake, his heart beats in his throat, and by the time he can make it stop, the shapeshifter has already changed into a rat and disappeared through a crack in the wall.

\---

“Find her,” he tells Clark. “I’ll find the kid.”

\---

It starts like this:

Bruce storms into the room and Barry is there, shackled against the wall.

“Barry,” Bruce says without even thinking, tone soft and rough and breathless. It doesn’t feel real. Barry is curled up into a defensive ball, hands tucked against his stomach, and it’s at once the most exhilarating and upsetting thing Bruce has ever seen. “Barry. You’re—you’re alive.”

Barry lets out a whimper, curls further into himself in a way that makes Bruce’s stomach sink. The kid’s skinny—way too skinny, and broken in ways that Bruce can’t even imagine. But he’s alive.

“Please,” Barry begs, wrecked, and Bruce would give anything to never hear his voice sounding like that again. “Please. Don’t do this. I can’t—it won’t work.”

And Bruce's breath returns just to get caught in his throat. 

“Barry,” he asks, “what are you talking about?”

But he has a feeling that he already knows.

Barry shuts his eyes, pushes himself as far back into the wall as he can, and Bruce bites back a wince as the stuttered, “please, please, please,” hits him like tidal waves.

“Barry,” Bruce croaks. “It’s okay. It’s alright. It’s me.”

He approaches Barry then, crouches down low and walks forward step-by-step, trying to make himself into as small of a threat as possible. But when he gets too close, Barry lets out a broken “ _stop_ ,” and Bruce complies. He tries to crouch down—to get eye level with the kid—but Barry flinches back at that, too, violently slamming back against the plaster, and Bruce stands up again, the mixture of relief and sorrow and muted fury at the entire situation making his head spin.

“Stop being nice,” Barry pleads, and Bruce shuts his eyes, tries to regain control of whatever emotion that just elicited. “Stop pretending. Please, just,” Barry chokes on his request, words failing him.

There’s a clamor then, coming from outside the hallway, and Bruce can see Barry’s panic attack coming from a mile away. Bruce swings his arm out in an arc, and he internally curses as it makes the kid flinch again, but at least it manages to stop Arthur at the doorway like it was intended to.

“Don’t move,” Bruce orders. “Wait right there.”

Arthur frowns, clearly agitated. “What the _fuck,_ Batman? Why—”

“He’s scared,” Bruce cuts him off. “And confused. Let me handle this.”

“Why would he be—” Diana starts. Bruce knows the answer, and he hates it.

“She’s been using our faces.”

He can hear clamor that follows—can hear Arthur’s cursing and Diana’s attempts to mediate—but none of that matters right now. All that matters is the boy shaking on the ground, hands still raised defensively over his own head.

“Barry,” Bruce says again. He looks down at the kid, takes in the fresh bruises and bitterly wishes to hell and back that he’d gotten another shot at the Shapeshifter in. “Barry. What do you need from me? Anything. What do you need?”

He means it. If Barry needs him to just stand there for hours, he’ll do it. And if Barry needs him to leave—to hover outside and wait until the boy passes out before carrying him back to safety—then he’ll do that, too.

But Barry doesn’t ask for that.

“I need you to be real this time,” he says instead. “I need this to be over.”

And Bruce nods, because that’s easy. That’s simple.

He crouches down, frowns as Barry lets out a terrified sob.

“It’s okay,” Bruce soothes. “It’s okay.”

He reaches out—in part to reassure Barry (and in part to reassure himself) that this is _real,_ Barry is _here,_ nobody can take that away from him—and he places his palm against Barry’s cheek. Then, will a careful deliberation, he peels off the cowl so all that is left is Bruce Wayne.

\---

“Bruce?” Barry asks, and he’s trembling and bleeding and _alive._

(And it feels nice, Bruce thinks, to be there on time for once.)

“Bruce. _Bruce._ ”

“It’s me, Barry,” Bruce promises. He fights and then succumbs to the urge to let his neck droop forward until his forehead is resting against Barry’s own. “It’s me. This is real. Barry, _look at me._ This is real.”

“You’re okay,” Bruce says. “We’re okay.”

And Barry’s smiling when he begins to cry.

\---

Victor pauses the frequency of the metal on the shackles, and even though Bruce hates asking him to do it when he’s so obviously hungry and in pain, he encourages Barry to phase himself free.

“I’m okay,” Barry reassures them afterwards, between ragged breaths. But when Victor leans down to help Barry to his feet, Barry recoils so viciously that it’s clear he’s not okay at all.

Barry looks ashamed, but Victor reassures him that it isn’t a big deal, and in the end, Barry settles with slinging an arm over Bruce’s shoulder and staggering out of the building towards the Batmobile as Victor hovers to the side.

Bruce uses this opportunity to take stock of Barry’s injuries—feels the residual anger and distress flare as he takes note of the knife still lodged in Barry’s body, the bloody, burned wrists and the way that some of Barry’s finger bones have set incorrectly. One of his knees is crooked, too, likely from a previously busted kneecap—and when Barry passes out halfway out of the building, right after apologizing for the ruined dress shirt, Bruce remembers that he’s severely malnourished, too.

“I couldn’t find her,” Clark apologizes from where he is leaning back against the Batmobile, because that’s just the way this night is going, apparently. 

“Help me get him into the car,” Bruce replies. He can’t deal with the Shapeshifter right now.  

They prop Barry up against the door inside the car, careful to keep the knife from getting jostled, and Arthur slides in next to him, adjusting his body so that Barry is nestled up against his side.

Bruce glances back at them every once and a while on the drive back to the Hall of Justice, where they can work on fixing the medical problems that they find, and when Arthur catches him in the act, the Atlantean pulls Barry in closer.

"How'd you know the mask would work?" Arthur asks, and Bruce hears  _how'd you know he didn't tell her your secret identity?_

"Do you really think Barry would ever tell?" Bruce responds. Arthur looks down at the kid, closes his eyes tight and takes a deep breath. When he opens his eyes again, his posture radiates protective fury.

“I’m going to kill her,” he tells Bruce.

Bruce does not reply.

(He understands.)

\---

It starts like this:

Barry is lost, then he is found, and it’s so much more complicated than that, but it really isn’t complicated at all. Bruce’s temporary team becomes something more, and maybe it's a mistake or maybe it isn’t, but whatever it is, he’s in way too deep to bow out now.  

Barry Allen is alive. Barry Allen is safe. Barry Allen is—not exactly okay—but he will be.

The League will make sure of that.

\---

\---

“So, umm, I think the gala went _alright—”_

“ _Jesus Christ,_ Barry."

“Too soon?”                    

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry I said I would write comfort and then proceeded to write more pain. I promise the comfort will come after finals (which end this Saturday for me), but user Adaven mentioned the idea of the whole thing from the team's perspective and my brain imploded. So, thank you for that :') 
> 
> Also I want to take this time to thank literally every human being that read/liked/commented on Antitheses. I fully intend on going through and responding to everyone individually after my physics final murders me.


End file.
